Mary Mundeya
The first sign of trouble in Prudence Hanyani’s Mabvuku home is one she has known for nearly three decades. The 47-year-old resident of Ward 21 last saw council water flow from her taps almost 30 years ago.
“We’ve become water beggars,” she says, staring at the army of plastic buckets lining her wall. Her family’s survival, like that of her neighbours, depends on wells and boreholes, which are drying up as temperatures rise. She has given birth to children who have never seen running water from a household tap. “We’re not just fighting for water, we’re fighting for a basic human right,” Hanyani adds.
Fifteen kilometers away, in Mbare’s Mbare flats, 63-year-old Israel Mabhoo faces a different water nightmare. When liquid finally gushes from his pipes after days of waiting, it carries the color of weak tea and the smell of decay.
“This isn’t a blessing, it’s a threat,” the 63-year-old says, watching rust-colored water fill his containers. “The council tells us it’s safe to drink, but how do you deem something this dirty safe? We’re not just thirsty – we’re being poisoned.”
From Mabvuku’s dry pipes to Mbare’s contaminated flows, Harare’s water crisis wears different masks but delivers the same anguish. Yet while Prudence and John queue for water, a parallel battle rages in Zimbabwe’s digital space. An investigation into the torrent of social media posts about the crisis reveals a sophisticated campaign to weaponize their suffering for political gain.
This is not merely a story of falsehoods, but a complex tale of malinformation – the selective use of true facts to create false narratives – and disinformation, where outright lies are strategically seeded. The campaign’s target is the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), which controls the city council. But a deeper examination reveals that while the CCC’s governance is flawed, it operates with one hand tied behind its back by a central government that systematically engineers its failure. This political conflict is intensified by a changing climate, where prolonged droughts and erratic rainfall act as relentless stress multipliers, pushing an already fragile system toward collapse. Ordinary citizens are caught in this perfect storm, victims of crumbling infrastructure, digital manipulation, and a warming planet.
The ghost in the machine – A system built to fail
To comprehend the scale of the challenge, one must visit the source: the Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant. Commissioned in 1954, the plant is a haunting relic. Its aging pumps struggle to push water through a network of pipes so decrepit that the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) – the state-owned body responsible for water resources management – estimates nearly 60% of treated water is lost through leaks before it reaches a single tap.
“We are fighting a ghost,” explains a senior plant engineer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “You treat the water to a potable standard, but by the time it travels through corroded, pre-independence pipes, it’s re-contaminated. The system is haemorrhaging. We need a complete overhaul, not just bandaids.”
This infrastructural collapse is the foundational truth upon which the entire crisis is built. A 2023 report by the Institute of Water and Sanitation Development (IWSD), a respected regional non-governmental organization, confirmed that Harare’s water infrastructure requires an investment of over USD $2 billion to meet current demand, a figure that grows annually. This is not a problem the city council can solve alone. It is a national crisis requiring central government intervention and funding.
The divide within: Inequality and injustice in Harare’s water crisis
The water crisis is not experienced equally across Harare. A journey from the high-density suburb of Mabvuku to the low-density affluence of Borrowdale reveals a city of stark contrasts, defined not just by water access but by water safety.
In Mabvuku’s Ward 21, residents like Prudence Hanyani have not received municipal water for nearly 30 years. They rely on a precarious network of wells and boreholes, which are increasingly unreliable as rising temperatures cause them to dry up. “We have given birth to children who have never seen running water coming out of their household taps,” says Hanyani. She and her neighbours have engaged the council, lobbying to be exempt from fixed water charges and attending budget consultative meetings, pleading with councillors to fulfill their constitutional mandate to provide this basic human right.
Conversely, in Borrowdale, an affluent suburb home to diplomats and wealthy businesspeople, the streets are quiet and lined with lush gardens. While not immune to municipal water shortages, most homes and businesses here have deep, professionally drilled private boreholes that tap into cleaner, deeper aquifers, largely protected from the shallow groundwater contamination that plagues high-density areas. The crisis in Borrowdale is an inconvenience; in Mabvuku, it is a generational denial of a basic service.
This inequality has deep roots. Under colonial rule, modern water infrastructure was deliberately reserved for white suburbs, while black townships like Mbare were systematically neglected. Tragically, this legacy of unequal service delivery continues today, with the ZANU-PF government, like the colonial regime before it, using access to water as a tool of political control, rewarding supporters and punishing opponents.
The crisis is intensified by climate change. A 2024 report by the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) noted a steady decline in rainfall reliability over the past two decades, with more frequent and severe droughts reducing water levels in the city’s primary sources. The crisis is intensified by climate change. A 2024 report by the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) noted a steady decline in rainfall reliability over the past two decades, with more frequent and severe droughts reducing water levels in the city’s primary sources. This dynamic is analyzed by Dr. Manuel T. Moyo, a geography and environmental studies expert, who explains that “the interplay of climate change with pre-existing vulnerabilities, such as inadequate infrastructure, creates a feedback loop that worsens the water crisis.” This positions climate change not as a standalone issue, but as a force that catastrophically multiplies the impact of the city’s crumbling, man-made systems.
A history of weaponized neglect
The current crisis did not emerge in a vacuum. The politicization of Harare’s water has its roots in the early 2000s, when the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) – the precursor to the CCC – first began winning control of urban councils. The ZANU-PF government, the ruling party since independence in 1980, led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa, viewing urban centres as hostile territory, initiated a strategy of systematic disempowerment that echoed the spatial inequalities of the colonial era.
The current framework is a tangled web of laws that create a perfect environment for blame-shifting. The Water Act (Chapter 20:24) designates all water as a state resource, managed by the central government through ZINWA. Conversely, the Urban Councils Act (Chapter 29:15) mandates local authorities like the Harare City Council to provide potable water. This creates a system where the central government is responsible for the strategic, large-scale infrastructure, like building new dams and major pipelines, while the council is tasked with the “last mile”: treatment, distribution, and billing. This model fails when the central government neglects its primary role.
The promise of devolution in Zimbabwe’s 2013 constitution, a principle meant to transfer political and financial power to locally elected bodies to better address local needs like water provision, was meant to reverse this centralization. In practice, for opposition-run cities like Harare, it has become a mechanism for suffocation.
The central government controls the national treasury. An analysis of the National Budget from 2015 to 2024 shows a consistent pattern: urban constituencies that vote for the opposition receive a disproportionately small share of the capital development fund. For instance, in the 2023 fiscal year, an audit revealed Harare received only 17% of its allocated devolution funds. These funds are legally mandated for projects like water and sanitation.
This systemic failure is rooted in a deliberate blockage of decentralization, as outlined in a policy brief by Gwinyai Taruvinga for the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), titled “Zimbabwe water crisis: Decentralisation blocked by political interference.” The brief argues that the solution requires depoliticizing water management. It explicitly calls to “Devolve and decentralise power,” noting that while “Zimbabwe’s 2013 constitution provides for central government powers and functions to be given to provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities,” what is missing is the “Political will… required to actually do this.”
To break the cycle of blame and sabotage, Taruvinga recommends that “independent water experts should oversee decentralisation of water resources without being influenced politically,” and to “empower communities through stronger institutions,” pointing out that “Zimbabwe’s centralised system hampers strong local organisations.” This analysis frames the water crisis not as a technical failure, but as a direct consequence of a political system designed to maintain centralised control by crippling local authorities.
The official voices – Denials, deflections, and desperation
The public statements from officials on either side of the divide reveal the chasm in accountability.
Mayor Jacob Mafume, a member of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) who leads the Harare City Council, consistently frames the council as a victim of macroeconomic policies and central government obstruction. In a press conference covered by The Standard, a privately-owned weekly newspaper, he stated, “We are doing our best with the little we have. The issue of water is a national issue… We cannot print US dollars to buy chemicals. The debt we inherited is huge.”
On the other side, Daniel Garwe, the Minister of National Housing and Social Amenities (a member of ZANU-PF), shifts the blame entirely onto the council.
State-owned and ruling party-aligned media outlets consistently amplify a narrative that absolves the central government of systemic responsibility. This coverage meticulously frames the administration as a proactive saviour, as seen in reports touting the President’s personal “mission to end water woes” through borehole drilling and the launch of long-promised dams. Simultaneously, it casts the opposition-led council as the sole villain, crafting a potent public narrative of good versus evil. This electoral rhetoric is stark and directly tied to central government initiatives.
During election periods, ZANU-PF campaigning has strategically dovetailed with presidential programs. President Mnangagwa himself has been portrayed as being “on a mission to end water woes” through interventions like the Presidential Borehole Scheme. This creates a powerful, state-backed campaign message: a vote for ZANU-PF is a vote for direct, tangible solutions like boreholes, effectively campaigning on a platform of temporary fixes to a permanent crisis that the party’s national policies help perpetuate. The CCC’s response, in turn, has been to frame the issue as a matter of national justice: “The money for the dams is in Harare [the capital city], but they are sending it to other provinces. We need to vote for change at the national level to free the resources for Harare.”
This narrative of council incompetence is given weight by a severe lack of financial transparency. The Harare City Council has not had its books officially audited since 2021, making it impossible for residents to know how their money is being spent. The last available audit, for 2021, was a damning document that flagged massive financial irregularities.
“You cannot be accountable when you cannot be audited,” said Reuben Akili, Chairperson of the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA). “The 2021 audit revealed unaccounted-for funds amounting to ZWL $458 million, with no proper bank records. We are now in 2025, discussing a 2026 budget for a council that hasn’t been transparently audited in years. How can you plug financial holes if you don’t even know where they are?”
Compounding this financial opacity is the systematic undermining of “devolution” – a constitutional principle designed to give local governments like Harare’s the power and funding to manage their own affairs, such as water provision. In practice, the ZANU-PF-led central government retains tight control.
“This violates the very heart of devolution,” Akili stated. “The law says local authorities should have autonomy to decide what their communities need most. But the government determines what to buy, when to buy it, and who you must buy it from. It raises more questions than answers about who truly benefits from these deals.”
Even President Emmerson Mnangagwa has weighed in, typically downplaying the crisis. In a speech at the 2024 Zimbabwe International Trade Fair, he spoke of “isolated challenges” and touted the long-stalled Kunzvi Dam project, a promise he has repeated at every election cycle since 2018.
The council’s own wounds – Ineptitude and corruption
To present the CCC-led council as a purely innocent victim, however, would be a disservice to the truth. The council is plagued by its own well-documented problems, which provide ample fodder for its critics.
A 2024 investigation by the Zimbabwe Independent, a private weekly newspaper, revealed that the council was losing millions of dollars annually through corrupt tender processes for pipe repairs.
Furthermore, the council has failed to effectively manage its own workforce. Stories of council workers soliciting bribes to fix burst pipes or reconnect supplies are rampant, fuelling public anger. A social media user, @mugadza_milton, channeled this fury in a post on September 8, 2025, that exemplifies the blending of truth and hyperbole. The post stated: “First street being in the city of Harare is under the stewardship of CCC. Why do people keep voting them in when they see such madness? They feed people Sewer water and those same people still vote for them.”
@mugadza_milton has a modest following. The account primarily posts political commentary critical of the CCC. While it appears to be a genuine personal account based on its posting history and interactions, its content is consistently partisan. The claim that the CCC “feeds people sewer water” is inflammatory disinformation, but it resonates because it is anchored in the verifiable truth of the council’s service delivery failure and the poor water quality.
The digital blaze – A coordinated ecosystem of blame
The CCC’s very real governance failures are not merely being reported on; they are being weaponized by a sophisticated digital campaign. An analysis of social media activity reveals that the online onslaught is not a series of isolated rants but a coordinated ecosystem of blame, where different actors play specialized roles to distort a complex crisis into a simple narrative of opposition incompetence and position the central government as the sole saviour.
The campaign’s architecture relies on a clear division of labor, employing a shared, recurring imagery, and strategic hashtags to create a unified and overwhelming narrative.
Influencer accounts set the narrative tone with sophisticated political arguments. For instance, user @TinotendaGacha1 made an explicit call for drastic, undemocratic measures, stating: “Why Harare Needs a State of Emergency… I have always argued that President Emmerson Mnangagwa @edmnangagwa should declare a State of Emergency in Harare, dissolve the City Council, and appoint a Commission of Competent people to run the City.” This post frames the ruling party as the only viable saviour from a crisis it attributes solely to the opposition.
Another prime example is @snowballOfficia, which functions as a central hub for allegations of high-level corruption. The account authoritatively leveraged the official Harare Commission of Enquiry to weave a story of a vast financial conspiracy, stating: “City Parking Harare, a company used as a conduit to funnel parking fees to the CCC… has been short-changing council between 2017 and 2022 by remitting dues to HCC only in local currency, yet it predominantly collects fees in hard currency. The arbitrage opportunity… stinks to the high heavens.”
This framing is critical. It transforms a complex financial audit into a simple story of deliberate theft, using emotionally charged phrases like “conduit to funnel” and “stinks to the high heavens.” The narrative culminates in the campaign’s ultimate objective: a direct call for the dissolution of democratic local governance: “We demand Harare City Council to be administered by the State.”
Another key strategy involves creating a stark visual and rhetorical contrast between council failure and government action. The Presidential Borehole Scheme is central to this. @CadreShangrila actively promoted this symbolism, posting about boreholes drilled in Glenview, Kambuzuma, and Warren Park, and explicitly mocking the opposition’s critique of this solution:
“They (opposition ccc supporters wearing party regalia) are drinking safe water from the borehole commissioned by President ED Mnangagwa. They were saying it’s primitive to drill a borehole in urban areas. Why are they drinking water from this borehole then?”
This post, accompanied by visuals of people drinking from the borehole, is designed to put the opposition in a political catch-22. The replies became a public battleground, with users like @Takunda79 reinforcing the government’s line (“Boreholes in towns are backward…”), while others like @baba_wynter countered with historical context: “Because ZanuPF has failed to provide water in households now people have to queue at boreholes in areas where Smith had installed tapped water.” The campaign leverages this genuine public dilemma, using the image of the borehole to position the state as the sole provider of a basic necessity.
The narratives set by influencers are directly echoed by amplifier accounts to create an illusion of a groundswell of public demand. User @CadreShangrila performs this role, voicing raw, manufactured outrage: “Almost 7 days to 2025 where we were promised to have a world-class city… We are going for a fortnight without tap water. Failure is written all over the faces of Jacob Mafume (Doink) & his bunch of useless councilors. We need a commission to run affairs.”
This post uses the derogatory nickname “Doink” for the mayor and mirrors the core demand for a state takeover, demonstrating a shared vocabulary and objective with the influencer accounts.
The most sophisticated tactic is the use of malinformation, where factual events are presented with manipulative context. The account @dereckgoto expertly executed this regarding the Lake Chivero situation: “Lake Chivero, the largest raw water source… is now at 100 percent capacity and spilling over. This development has raised questions about the Harare City Council’s claims of inadequate water sources… However, the current situation at Lake Chivero tells a different story.”
This narrative weaponizes the fact of a full dam to falsely imply the council’s claims of water shortages are a lie, deliberately omitting the critical issues of water treatment chemical shortages, funding, and dilapidated infrastructure. The post further integrates the recurring narrative of the “misappropriated USD144 million loan from the China Exim Bank,” a phrase used to taint the opposition with allegations of grand corruption. The replies show this tactic is not foolproof, as users like @MuronzwaLameck challenged the analysis, pointing to siltation and contamination, and @AlexanderKudya1 highlighted the central government’s overarching control.
The campaign is unified by a consistent set of words and phrases designed to provoke disgust and assign blame. The opposition-led council is consistently labeled as “shambolic,” “corrupt,” and “incompetent,” transforming Harare from the “Sunshine City” into a “Sewerage City.” This linguistic shift is powerful, using visceral imagery of “raw flowing sewerage” and “medieval diseases” like cholera to stoke public anger.
The human cost – A storm of lies and thirst
The ultimate casualties of this digital and political war are not politicians, but residents. The campaign’s most damaging success is the near-total erosion of public trust. When Mayor Mafume, after a meeting with the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission in early July 2025, declared the city’s water “safe to drink,” the statement was meaningless for Prudence Hanyani and the residents of Mabvuku Ward 21, who have no taps from which such water could flow, and was met with derision online by those who did.
This crisis is not a historical accident but the culmination of a long-standing political strategy. As historian Muchaparara Musemwa argues in his study The Politics of Water in Post-Colonial Zimbabwe, 1980-2007, water has been a key political tool for the ruling party. He writes that “water, second only to land, has become an exemplar of the political use of resources by the ruling party to keep itself in power.”
Musemwa’s research shows that the roots of the current emergency lie in deliberate state policy. “The current urban water ‘crisis’ in Zimbabwe,” he notes, “owes its genesis to the central government’s pervasive politicisation of most decisions affecting the municipal provision of water and sanitation in the country’s cities and towns.” The government, he argues, actively worked to “destabilise the longstanding water distribution arrangements in urban areas in total disregard of the laws that govern local authorities and to exploit the opportunities that arise from the resulting chaos.”
Decades later, this strategy has evolved to include the digital realm. The resulting information chaos has tangible, dire consequences. The distrust sown by both real failures and manufactured narratives leads residents to reject official guidance and turn to unsafe water sources, exacerbating public health emergencies like cholera and typhoid. The information epidemic, directly fuelled by this history of politicization, now worsens the physical one.
For Prudence Hanyani, this political fighting is a distant echo of a more immediate, generational struggle. Her lobbying at budget meetings and appeals to councillors are a quiet, persistent fight for a right her children have never known. The line at the communal borehole, which grows longer as the sun sets, is a daily reminder of a promise unfulfilled for nearly 30 years.
This article was produced with mentorship from the African Academy for Open Source Investigations (AAOSI) as part of an initiative by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway and Code for Africa (CfA). Visit https://disinfo.africa for more information.
